


Purity of Form

by seascribble



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Historical, M/M, Personal Hygiene, Temporary Character Death, emotionally charged circumcision, explicit musliming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seascribble/pseuds/seascribble
Summary: Two centuries later, give or take a few decades, Yusuf is perhaps not as good a Muslim, in the strictest sense of following the deen, as he had been before falling in with Nicolò--falling in lovewith Nicolò--but he still takes pride in maintaining his fitrah.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 70
Kudos: 326





	Purity of Form

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Inlovewithnight and Girlmarauders for cheerleading and beta, and to my twitter timeline for putting up with me screaming about this for like a week.

Throughout his life, Yusuf had taken his fitrah very seriously. He had been circumcised as a boy, in the custom of his people, and as a man had taken pride in maintaining the cleanliness of his body, as the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, had instructed. Many things changed after his death--his first death. They wore away like water dripping on a stone under his deaths and the company of his Christian--first his caustic and sometimes murderous taunts and later under fond touches and kind words. 

Yusuf's sense of his body, though, that does not change. From the beginning, Nicolò watches him, as he meticulously removes the hair from under his arms and between his legs, first with an air of horror and then of something very different. Yusuf should tell him to look away, to preserve his modesty, but he knows when he is being admired, and cannot help but preen a little. 

"Why do you do--" Nicolò gestures at his own awrah, "--that?" 

"Because Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, made our shapes beautiful and we should take care to maintain that beauty." Yusuf remains focused on his task, but he hears the indrawn breath Nicolò takes and can picture the endearingly idiotic way his mouth is gaping open. 

"Your vanity is astounding," Nicolò mutters, and Yusuf preens again. 

"Alhamdullilah."

*

Two centuries later, give or take a few decades, Yusuf is perhaps not as good a Muslim, in the strictest sense of following the deen, as he had been before falling in with Nicolò-- _falling in love_ with Nicolò--but he still takes pride in maintaining his fitrah. It is an added reward that Nicolò is intrigued and aroused by the practice. Truly, walking the straight path bestows great favour upon the believers. 

Growing weary of aimless wandering, they had flipped a coin and headed north, thinking perhaps to continue until they reached the vast fields and mountains of ice, the stuff of stories. Yusuf has his doubts that such things are any more than that, but Nicolò has a whim, and it is a delight to Yusuf to indulge his whims. That is how they end up in Odessos, pausing in their northward journey for Nicoló to hear some bittersweet word of his homeland. That is also how they end up in the middle of some property dispute, because Nicolò cannot say no to a tragic plea in his native tongue and Yusuf cannot say no to him. 

Yusuf would endure much worse than a death to bring Nicolò happiness, but he would have hoped for a less ignominious one than being crushed under the wheels of an ox cart--pushed, he will insist, he was pushed, he did not trip--feeling the bones of his pelvis grind and shatter, the flesh of his thighs and genitals ground to a pulp. Ya rabb, it is not a pleasant death. He hopes that Nicolò has been more successful, InshAllah. 

When Yusuf breathes again, Nicolò is there, cradling his body--whole, no longer in pain, but disgusting--and he presses his forehead to Yusuf's with a laugh. Even after two hundred years and dozens of deaths, there is a moment of fear and then of relief when they are reunited. 

"I am taking you back to the house," Nicolò says. "I have to make sure that your cock returned intact with the rest of you." 

"Of course it did, you lecherous old man," Yusuf says fondly, but he knows better than to argue with Nicolò when he's in a mood like this, even if he had wanted to.

Their rented room is a small, shabby affair, but it has a decent bed with a door that locks and a glorified wooden bucket that Nicolò hauls water to fill for Yusuf to bathe away the filth from his death. He even goes so far as to bribe a kitchen boy to boil some water, that Yusuf may be warm when he bathes. Truly, his Christian is the best of men.

It is therefore unfortunate that Yusuf is distracted from his enjoyment of the luxury of a warm bath with the promise of carnal delights to follow by the discovery that he has come back from this most recent death fashioned like a newborn babe and missing the familiar clean shape of his khitan. Nicolò, watching him with a fond, wanton gaze is also quick to notice. 

"Ehi! Now we match, habibi!" he says, laughing. "Let me get mine out, we'll compare."

Yusuf fights the ridiculous urge to cover himself with his hands. "I have to fix it." 

"Fix it? It doesn't look broken, but let me check." Nicolò drops to his knees and Yusuf does cover himself with his hands. 

"Stop that. I need to go find a physician."

Nicolò opens his mouth for a caustic retort--and damn him, Yusuf's cock twitches under his hands, well accustomed to that sight--but then he seems to reconsider. "Let me do it," he says. 

"I would prefer someone with a little more experience in that particular art," Yusuf says, willing his cock to stop reacting to the idea of Nicolò poised above it with a blade. 

Nicolò scoffs. "You know how good I am with a knife. Besides, if I make a mistake, we can just chop it off and I'll try again." He smirks up at Yusuf. 

"Amore mio," Yusuf says, "I hate to tell you, but that is not the way to set the mood." Nicolò knows better than to take him at his word, though, and presses a kiss to his hip before going to get his knife. 

Yusuf supposes that were he another man, he would be nervous of this, in fear of the pain or of a slip of the knife. But he trusts Nicolò with his heart, his soul, with his endless life, and what is his most intimate part compared to those? He relaxes back onto the narrow bed, his cock comfortably soft against his thigh, and waits for Nicolò's hands. 

"What if it doesn't work?" Nicolò says. "Will you have me performing surgery on you daily?"

Absurd that the thought makes Yusuf's mouth go dry with lust, but that is the power Nicolò has over him. To be under his hands, the focus of his regard, is a joy to Yusuf, and he has not yet found a permutation of the experience that he does not cherish.

Nicolò takes his cock in hand tenderly, and Yusuf's whole body shivers. "If you move and cause me to slip, I will not take responsibility," Nicolò says to him, laughter in his voice. 

"Then you should hurry," Yusuf says. He has died enough times to know that he does not like pain, the way some men do who seek it out, and yet his body thrills with the anticipation of the bite of Nicolò's knife, of being at his mercy for this act of fitrah. It is perfect that Nicolò--by his side in all things, first in his heart--should be the one to complete him spiritually, removing a barrier between him and his lord. His fingers are gentle, sure, a new sensation in the details as he lifts and stretches the skin, but infinitely familiar in the care and intimacy.

The cut comes without warning, a bright singing pain that makes Yusuf shout and clutch at the mattress to remain still for the rest of the work. Nicolò's hands are--as promised, as Yusuf well knows--swift and sure and his knife is sharp. Yusuf lifts his head to see, and is struck by the intensity of Nicolò's light gaze as he cuts, as though his whole world has narrowed to his hands and the knife and Yusuf's khitan. There is some blood, but less than Yusuf had been expecting, and the hot searing agony of the knife is soon replaced by a burning, throbbing ache. 

Nicolò carefully blots away the blood and regards his handiwork. "Is it well done, ya hayati?" 

"Alhamdullilah, it is," Yusuf says, breathless with pain and a sense at once of both great satisfaction and desperate, yawning need. "Come to me?"

Nicolò stoops to kiss him, familiar as breathing. "Soon, and we will rest." He restores the room to order with a fastidiousness that Yusuf can only assume endures from his days as a priest and returns to the bed, lying down between Yusuf and the door, as is his custom. Yusuf takes him in his arms and their bodies fold together, as natural and fitting as a dagger into a sheath. 

Tomorrow, they will move on from this place, towards new adventures and new deaths. But Yusuf does not think of that, here with his beloved in his arms, whole in body and in spirit. He kisses Nicolò's hair and together they drop off to sleep as one.

**Author's Note:**

> Astigfirrullah. 
> 
> What does he do with the foreskin? I don't know and I too am haunted by it. If someone who is a more knowledgeable Muslim than me does know, please come tell me so we can all stop thinking about it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Purity of Form](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627543) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)




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